


this sort of thing is old-fashioned

by starlight_sugar



Category: Sugar Pine 7 RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pacific Rim Fusion, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-18
Updated: 2017-12-18
Packaged: 2019-02-16 16:42:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13058010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starlight_sugar/pseuds/starlight_sugar
Summary: “Cib doesn’t do anything on purpose,” Jeremy says, which might actually be true. Cib is one of the most confusing people any of them have ever met, which is extra strange when compared to Steve’s hyper-rational self. And somehow the two of them pilot the most famous Jaeger in Los Angeles.





	this sort of thing is old-fashioned

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: This is written by a fan for fans to read. On the off-chance that anyone affiliated with SP7 finds this, I kindly ask you to move along.
> 
> This is part of my own personal challenge to write a different SP7 AU every day in December. The selected fics I post on Ao3 can be found in the collection linked above; all the fics can be found on my Tumblr.

“The boys are coming back,” Jeremy remarks, on what should be a totally uneventful Tuesday morning.

Parker glances over, trying to hide the fact that his heart is definitely beating faster. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Jeremy says, casual as can be, which is a sign that something is definitely up. “They got deployed way early this morning. Big mission before breakfast.”

“You’ve been talking to Reina again?”

“She let me know that they’re incoming. Sounds like they have something for you.”

“For us,” Parker corrects him. “Both of us. We have the same job.”

Jeremy snorts. “Yeah, because Cib bringing you things is related to our job, and not at all how he expresses affection the same way dogs do.”

“Cib’s not a dog,” Parker says, even though he’s pretty sure that would explain… a lot about Cib. “What’re they bringing?”

“She wouldn’t say, just said it was for you.”

Parker makes a face. He likes Reina - likes everyone in the Shatterdome, of course - but he doesn’t like the running joke where everyone seems to think he and Cib are dating. Or whatever the joke is. He tries to avoid it, because it’s the kind of misinformation that’s a little chest-stabbingly painful whenever he remembers it’s not real.

And besides. Dating a Jaeger pilot is probably a bad idea.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Jeremy says mildly. “This is good. This is gonna be a breakthrough, or something.”

“The last time Cib came back from a mission with something for us-”

“For you.”

“For  _ us, _ ” Parker repeats, “it was the left hand of their Jaeger, because he forgot that we’re K-Science and not J-Tech.”

“It was covered in Kaiju blue. We made breakthroughs with that.”

“That doesn’t mean he did it on purpose.”

“Cib doesn’t do anything on purpose,” Jeremy says, which might actually be true. Cib is one of the most confusing people any of them have ever met, which is extra strange when compared to Steve’s hyper-rational self. And somehow the two of them pilot the most famous Jaeger in Los Angeles. Nobody understands it, least of all Parker.

“Still,” Parker mutters. “We don’t know what he’s going to bring.”

Jeremy shrugs. “We’re gonna find out in a few minutes, right?”

“Yeah,” Parker sighs. He’s a little embarrassed by how much he’s looking forward to that. Steve doesn’t seem to like him at all, but he figures that’s the kind of thing that happens when your friends become Jaeger pilots. You become friends with their copilots. That has to be perfectly normal.

#

Reina pushes the door to the lab open and props her hands on her hips. It’s the kind of hands-on-hips that makes Parker stand up a little straighter for no real reason, the kind that seems to mean something is about to Happen.

“Okay,” she says at last. “We’re going to need-” she gestures towards half their lab. “Everything over there? Gotta get it out of there.”

Jeremy, lounging in a chair, jumps to his feet. “What?”

“You’re going to need space for this,” Reina says, in her mission control voice. “Like, guys, you’re really going to want as much room as possible.”

“Why?”

“You’ll know why in about twenty minutes.”

“Why don’t we know now?”

“We’re busy clearing it,” she says, and for some godforsaken reason, looks at Parker. “You… have indirectly made my life very difficult today.”

Parker blinks. “What? How did- sorry, I didn’t mean to-”

“No, of course not,” Reina mutters. “It’s not your fault, someone else made it very directly difficult.”

“Someone whose name rhymes with bib, I’d guess,” Jeremy says, in that weird semi-cheerful way he gets whenever something incredibly weird is about to happen. It’d make Parker’s skin crawl if it weren’t Jeremy. “Twenty minutes?”

“Twenty minutes!” Reina snaps her fingers and points at Jeremy, then Parker. “Get it done. Boys’ll be here soon.”

Jeremy nods at her, and Reina leaves as quickly as she entered. “What do you think they’re bringing us?”

“I don’t know,” Parker says thoughtfully. “Sounds like an actual kaiju-related thing this time. Do you think we’ll need to sterilize?”

“I think if we’re going to try and prep lab space for kaiju parts in twenty minutes, we need to get a move on.”

“Good point.”

Jeremy grins at him, a little shark-like. “Still think it’s not for you?”

“Shut up,” Parker mutters, because if it’s for him then he doesn’t know how to handle that, and Jeremy has to know that by now. “Let’s just… prep the lab, okay?”

“Sure thing,” Jeremy says, a little overly generous. Parker decides to ignore him.

#

Andrew is the first one in the lab, followed by Sami Jo and Jamie from J-Tech and a ton of people that Parker doesn’t recognize. And in the center of them all is something huge and covered in a tarp.

“Sami Jo!” Parker says, more surprised than he means to be. “You’re- hey, what’s going on?”

“Too much, Coppins,” she mutters, but she still flashes him a bright smile. “You guys are going to be spending a lot of time here soon. Better get comfy.”

“Yeah,” Parker says, because he’s getting that impression, “but what’s… you know, happening?”

“Get comfy,” Sami Jo repeats, and goes off towards Jeremy.

Parker blinks after her for a few seconds, trying to understand, but Sami Jo isn’t easily understood, so he turns away and finds Cib only a couple feet from him. He tries not to jump, he really does, but he’s kind of an obvious jumper. “Oh, uh, Cib! What’s-”

“Got you a present,” Cib says. He’s practically beaming.

“Ugh,” Steve says, walking past them both. “You- come on, Cib.”

“I did!” Cib protests. “It’s a good one, too.”

“Thank you, first of all,” Parker says. “And I can’t wait to actually… find out what it is.”

“They didn’t tell you?”

“Reina said something about security clearance?”

Cib snorts. “You guys have, like, big fucking clearance, you should know what it is.”

“Couldn’t agree more,” Jeremy says, materializing by Parker’s shoulder. He’s still watching everyone fussing around the thing under the tarp, in the newly-cleaned and barely-sterilized half of their lab. “What’d you get us?”

“Steve, what’d we get them?”

Steven sighs. “So we cut a Kaiju in half in the middle of the ocean, and Cib had the great idea of bringing you guys the upper half.”

“ _ What? _ ” Parker whips around, staring at the thing. It looks like the engineers are pulling the tarp off, and it looks like a giant glass tank. “You got-”

“Lower half was too damaged to be studied extensively,” Andrew explains. “Hey, guys.”

Parker waves at Andrew. “Thanks, J-Tech.”

“We’ve been building you guys a tank all morning,” Andrew says. “Sami Jo saved our collective asses on that, she figured out how to get it done quick.”

“And it’s the kind of thing we can study?” Jeremy demands. “We can actually run experiments on it?”

“I named him Alfredo,” Cib says. When Parker glances over, he looks completely pleased with himself. And he’s looking right at Parker. “You like him?”

“This is the greatest thing anyone’s ever given me,” Parker says, mostly without thinking. Although it’s sort of true. He’s probably never going to leave the lab again, because he has to figure out every single secret that Alfredo has to offer. And that kind of puzzle, that kind of opportunity is the kind of thing that means a lot.

When he looks back, Steven is mid-eyeroll, and Andrew is making a face that means… something. But Cib has gone completely soft around the edges, like he melted. Like the only thing he wants to look at is Parker. It’s a little overwhelming, all told.

“Awesome,” Cib says warmly, and it’s all Parker can do to tear his eyes away and look back at Alfredo.

#

The thing is, then Parker actually doesn’t leave the lab for four days.

He and Jeremy have things to do - so many things to do. Experiments, ideas, the works. The only people allowed entry are Reina, because they couldn’t stop her if they wanted to, and whoever brings them pizza, which tends to be Reina because she gets automatic entry.

They spend the first day coming up with ideas for what to do with Alfredo. (Jeremy starts out insisting that they can’t name it, but by halfway through the second day he’s calling it Fred for time’s sake.) The second day is gathering equipment, with help from Andrew and Sami Jo. The third day begins with Jeremy sleeping, because apparently he’s still physically capable of that. Parker’s not sure that he is, which is why he’s awake and scribbling notes on a whiteboard when the door opens.

“Hey,” he says without turning around. “Reina, J-Tech, pizza?”

“Have you ever met an actual person before?” Steve says. “Just wondering. And why’s Jeremy on a lab table?”

“We don’t have sleeping bags.” Parker turns around, blinking hard when dark spots appear in front of his eyes. “What’s going on?”

“Just wanted to make sure that you’re still alive. Just you, I’m okay if Jeremy’s actually dead.”

“I would’ve filed a report.”

“You would’ve,” Steve mutters. It feels weirdly like an insult, even though it’s a factual statement.

And Parker, who hasn’t slept in a little over two days, can’t stop himself from saying, “Did I do something wrong?”

Steve frowns. “What?”

“Like, it’s okay if you want to be, you know, hotshot Jaeger pilot, because you are,” Parker says, and god, he’s babbling, but if he doesn’t say this now, he won’t do it. “Be friends with James and Autumn and all the other pilots, that’s cool, but we knew each other before, and I just want to know… why.”

“Why I’m not hanging out with you even though are jobs are in completely different divisions?”

“Why you don’t look at me anymore.”

Steve sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. Parker waits, swaying on the spot, until Steve says, “Listen. You’ve heard of ghost-drifting?”

“Sure,” Parker says. “You’re linked even when you’re not drifting.”

“Exactly. Cib and I get a little bit of that. Every pair of pilots does.”

“What about it?”

“Cib has… feelings.” Steven wrinkles his nose. “And I know they’re his, but I don’t want them to get mixed up with mine. So I’m trying to dial up my opposite feelings. And that means being mean to you.”

Parker blinks. “So Cib wants to be nice to me?”

“Oh, honey,” Steve says, “you’re smarter than that. And you didn’t do anything wrong, other than assuming that I was Reina, what the fuck?”

“Reina’s allowed here. You’re not.”

“Says who?”

Parker points at the whiteboard where he and Jeremy wrote all their lab rules. The biggest one, at the top, is the list of people allowed in the lab. “You’re not allowed.”

“Are you throwing me out?”

“If you’ll leave.”

“Get some sleep, dude,” Steve says. “This science is dangerous to do when you’re not functioning at a hundred percent.”

“It’s dangerous to do when you are.”

“Sleep,” Steve repeats, and leaves, calling over his shoulder, “and text Cib, for Christ’s sake.”

Parker should text Cib. He has a handful of unread texts from Cib, the ones that he knows would distract him if he read them, but he can’t read them. So instead he wanders over to the table where Jeremy is sleeping and crawls underneath. He knows it’s not great sleeping conditions, but he barely has time to think that he should ball up his coat under his head before he closes his eyes.

#

Jeremy wakes him up a few hours later - definitely not long enough for either of them to be rested, but enough that they can make better choices. “You ready to collect samples?”

“Mm.” Parker stretches and gets out from underneath the table. “Why’d I- there’s another table right over there.”

“I thought you just wanted my company,” Jeremy says. “But, you know.”

Parker half-smiles. “Maybe. You ready to do this?”

“I just asked you that.”

“Maybe we should get more sleep before we do this.”

“We don’t know how long Fred’s gonna last,” Jeremy reminds him. It’s a conversation they’ve had a dozen times over already. “Better to do it now.”

“I’ll tell Reina,” Parker sighs, and they get to work.

It takes them twenty-three hours, edging them into day four of lab work, for them to sample everything. They have tissues from the brain, mouth, eyes, throat, intestines, and a couple of things that Parker’s not sure what they functionally are but seemed important. But at the end of it Alfredo is still mostly whole, and they have… a lot of Kaiju fluids in their lab.

“Okay,” Jeremy sighs, scrubbing at his eyes. “Okay, clean-up, we should-”

“You can go,” Parker says immediately.

Jeremy frowns. “What?”

“Go see Andrew or something,” he says gently. “You’ve got- you know, there are people outside waiting for you. It’ll only take me a couple hours.”

“You sure?”

“Sure.”

“Alright.” Jeremy leans forward and hugs Parker. It’s a little awkward and more than a little clumsy, with the exhaustion and the fact that they don’t normally do that, but it’s heartfelt. Parker can tell. “Great job, dude.”

“You too.” Parker squeezes him and lets go. “Go have fun. I’ll be out soon.”

“Let me know when you’re done so I know you didn’t pass out,” Jeremy says, and then he’s out of the lab, on his way to see Andrew, probably.

Parker doesn’t mind being in the lab alone. He probably prefers it, all told. It’s quiet enough to hear himself think, or to talk to himself as he has ideas. Or talk to Alfredo, because Alfredo is a better listener than Jeremy during cleanup.

He’s just finishing up when the door swings open. “Almost done,” Parker says, and turns, and it’s not Jeremy. It’s Cib. “Oh.”

“Dude,” Cib says, looking around at all the carefully-labeled samples and equipment. “What is that?”

“It’s Alfredo.”

“Seriously?”

“We’re going to have so many tests to run.” Parker rubs his eyes. “After both of us eat something that came from a vegetable, or a food group other than takeout.”

“You did all this in four days?”

“We don’t know a lot about preserving Kaiju. We’re doing what we can.”

Cib whistles lowly. “Well, color me impressed.”

“Thanks.” Parker finally, finally remembers to smile at him. “And thanks.”

“You double-thanked me there.”

“Thanks for being impressed,” he clarifies. “And for Alfredo. This- you guys are going to probably literally save lives, you know?”

“Aw, gee,” Cib says, and he smiles back at Parker, the kind of sly, secretive smile that he only gets when nobody else is there. “And here I was just trying to impress you.”

Parker laughs, a little helplessly. “Well, now I’m the impressed one, I guess.”

Cib grins. “Dude, you’re so fucking tired.”

“I’m  _ so _ tired,” he admits, and shucks off his lab coat. “I haven’t seen a bed in four days, just the underside of a table.”

“Not nearly as comfy, I bet.”

“Not even close.”

“You probably shouldn’t drive,” Cib says, like it’s just occurring to him, or like it hasn’t occurred to Parker a dozen times. “Do you need a ride somewhere?”

“You don’t-”

“Let me take you home,” Cib says, and it’s not an offer but a plea. “Parker, come on.”

“Okay,” Parker says. It’s barely a whisper, but Cib’s face still lights up. “Thank you.”

“Course,” Cib says. As soon as Parker’s close enough he slings one of his arms around Parker’s waist and pulls tight, so tight that Parker’s half leaning on them as they leave the lab. “You look exhausted, I was legit worried you’d pass out driving.”

“You might be right,” Parker mumbles, and he doesn’t say much else as they make their way through the dome. Cib’s talking, about things that might be important but sound like mush to him, and he’s going to have to ask for him to repeat it all when he can listen. “I’m probably going to sleep in your car.”

“I’d be more surprised if you didn’t,” Cib says cheerfully. “And I’ll have, you know, food when you wake up.”

Parker frowns. “What?”

“I’m taking you to my place,” Cib clarifies. “It’s closer, and I know where it is.”

“You don’t-”

“I have a spare room.”

“But-”

“Hey,” Cib says, gentle, careful. It’s so unlike him that Parker wants to smile. “I’ve got you, alright? Mister bigshot scientist, let me take the wheel on this one, okay?”

Parker takes a deep breath. “Okay.”

Cib’s fingers flutter against Parker’s waist, and maybe that’s something they’re going to have to talk about when Parker can have a conversation. But for the moment, Cib just says, “Good.” And Parker can’t help but agree.

**Author's Note:**

> title is from "Remember Us" by Gabriel Royal. you can find me, my fics, and whatever else I feel like posting on my Twitter and Tumblr @waveridden.


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